9. Lavish Shoestring™ Goal
Become the major Branded Supplier in the
largely untapped and fragmented £10+ billion
market of vintage and antique products; of low
to middle range value; in home & garden
categories; worldwide and cross audiences;
fuelled by technology, logistics and customer
service.
10. Problem
Highly Fragmented Market Supply
e-Tailers Want but Cannot Get a Hold
of Stock
Unsuitable for an average shopper
expecting a fast, “no hassle” and “easy
to grasp” purchase experience
11. Lavish Shoestring™ Solution
1. Smart Buy (1st stage) & Consignment Marketplace (2nd stage) - we source
unlimited volumes of stock, efficiently & cost effectively using LSS Bible,
RTB, Resell, Consignment. UK pool of readily accessible relevant products is
well in excess of 15 mil items/year – we know how to create a steady and
controlled supply from all the fragmented sources. Consignment
Marketplace will increase it significantly.
2. Smart Catalogue - we process products fast on a data intense, self-
learning platform – traditionally a resource intense stage, we make it into a
simple and fast logistics process, that does not rely on skilled labour
3. Central - we distribute a feed to retailers and control simple logistics chain
4. Smart Product Tag - we collect, control & reuse product data, making it a
Big Data, also using NFC, QR, Smart Ink. More data enhances cataloguing
ability, allows dynamic stock purchase control, re-purchase of sold items etc.
12. 1a. Sourcing Stage 1 – major suppliers:
Runners (bottom of the food chain) – freelance dealers who specialise in auction/house clearances and upsell their stock for
small margin. We use LSS Bible - a printed catalogue with prices that tells them what we buy – to be upgraded to RTB (Real
Time Buying) – a digital catalogue or app. Runners bring the stock to us; purchasing volumes brings price down.
Regional Charity Warehouses, where donations are sorted & priced before despatch to shops.
Auctions – more than 500 UK based online registered auctions who sell our type of products. 500 x 1 sale/month x 1000 lots
= 500K/month (heavily discounted calculation).
Antique Fairs – 100s of regular UK fairs/year. Major are up to 4K dealers at a time.
1b. Sourcing Stage 2 (in addition to Stage 1, not instead of):
Resell – customers can resell the products they purchased. We keep easily accessible data on every sold item (see NFC
explanation lower).
Consignment Marketplace – start with businesses, expand to public
Possible partnership with “hoover-buyers” such as MusicMagpie
2. Smart Catalogue
We see demand in supplying a simplified short product description with base keywords present – mainly due to short attention
span and lack of academic knowledge of vintage/antique. On the other hand – demand for superb visual presentation of products.
Currently we use a prototype catalogue based on Excel.
Second stage – all products are barcoded and data is gathered into templates that are adjusted and finalised by a cataloguer.
Final stage – full automation with selective human QA at the final catalogue; unusual items dealt separately. The more data we
have – the more efficient we become.
3. Smart Product Tag
We aim to be a branded supplier, so we brand every product with LSS NFC (Near Field Communication) tag, coded with product
URL in our database (we ran a pilot with NFC cards, but will use QR, Smart Ink and any other new tech for tagging). Customers can
easily access the data and we can mount any services on the platform, mainly the Buy Back/Consignment. It is also a new
customer acquisition tool. Instead of losing the knowledge and hence money, customers can realise more money with us through
this tool; and the aim is to make people associate vintage/antique & quality second hand with Lavish Shoestring.
13. Distribution Channels
Orange = live or agreement in place
LavishShoestring.com – e-tail and flash sales
Marketplaces – Amazon.com, eBay, Etsy, 1stDibs ….
e-Tailers & e-Malls – WorldStores, Fab.com, Gilt,
NotOnTheHighStreet, Net-a-Porter ….
Social Sellers – Fancy, Uncovet, Wanelo, Svpply, Wish,
Vaunte, Bureau of Trade, Pinterest ….
Curated Platforms – Achica, Casafina, Deconet, One Kings
Lane, RueLaLa, Beyond the Rack, HauteLook ….
Niche Platforms – wedding registries, shoppable design &
food blogs, Zola, Food52, Lover.ly, Lot18 ….
Brick & Mortar Retailers – anyone who can carry our
virtual digital catalogue
14. Our Bootstrapped Achievements
First to Market
Scouted by Amazon for an antiques pilot & the
only such Amazon merchant to be granted a
Brand Store
Gross margin 70%+ prior to any optimisation
No skilled labour required – can process 1000s
items/month
No comparable competition
Major media publications regularly source our
products
15. Raising £75,000
Scale up the process
Expand retail contracts
Stock acquisition
Zero ad budget
Live Lavish on a Shoestring
16. About Lavish Shoestring™
Started operating 2012, Oxford, UK
Funding Bootstrapped
Jacob Khokhlov CEO, Co-Founder
5 years @ MyThings.com; 2 years @ 62days.com; Sotheby’s London
Oxford University DPhil; Art History & Egyptology
Sharen Custer August VP Merchandise, Co-Founder
25+ years in antiques & jewellery trade
VP UK Gemology @ IMC Invest Mining Company
e: jk@lavishshoestring.com / p: +44 (0)7903 749 112 / skype: jakobkhokhlov
www.LavishShoestring.com
22. Established stock sourcing network – able to
deliver 5K+ products/month immediately
Designed cataloguing & logistics platform – 1st
stage implemented
Tested 11 distribution channels – 20+ more in
pipeline pending stock increase
Processed 2000+ products & sold 800+ (400+
products were a consignment pilot from a
business, mainly jewellery; not our purchased
stock)
Key Elements Done
23. Product Processing at Scale
Meet The Replicator - a base working unit of LSS
① Handle ② Photo ③ Catalogue
250 products per day - average processing capacity
when dealing with diverse items
Increases up to 500 while processing similar items
Allows modular, fast and simple company scaling by
replicating the same teams with stock increase
